Lord Mandelson

Debate between Jim McMahon and Kieran Mullan

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[Dr Mullan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Matt Bishop), and I say this as a Back Bencher who stood up to my Government because I realised what was happening and was not willing to be dragged into those situations. I do not speak from a position of self-righteousness. I have been in that position and I did what I thought was the right thing at the time. I suggest to Labour Members that they think very carefully about this, because we had an admission today. After months of trying to get it out of the Prime Minister, it was drawn out of him by the Leader of the Opposition that he knew that Peter Mandelson had continued his association with a convicted paedophile when he appointed him as ambassador.

[Jim McMahon]

I want to reflect on the hon. Gentleman’s interventions during the course of the debate, which have added to it. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) earlier suggested a manuscript amendment relating to the Intelligence and Security Committee. If that was to come forward, would he support it?

[Dr Mullan]

I would like to see the detail of it, but that was a helpful intervention from the former Deputy Prime Minister. I think there is a way forward for us, potentially.

I also want to highlight that it was not just this one issue of whether the Prime Minister knew that Mandelson was in touch with a paedophile. We also know what was publicly reported. Before Mandelson was appointed, Epstein was discussing Government business from jail, if we can believe the reporting. What more could we have known? We are Five Eyes partners with the United States. We share the most secret and confidential information with the United States, so what was preventing the Government from approaching the US Department of Justice prior to the public release of these emails and asking whether there was anything in them that we needed to know before we appointed Peter Mandelson as ambassador? We could have asked those questions, and I would like the Minister to say whether we did ask them and to give us any response we might have had. We are talking about what has been in the public domain, and the Government could have had that information beforehand.